


A Tune Popped Into My Head

by StarsHideYourFires



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, The Whole World Is A Musical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 19:11:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4888675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarsHideYourFires/pseuds/StarsHideYourFires
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on that tumblr post about being in a musical and suddenly having to participate in a duet because your soulmate is singing even if you are nowhere near one another.</p><p>Some people have these full-on, over-the-top, Broadway-style musical numbers—fully choreographed original songs that have other participants and all that jazz. Scott and Allison have that kind of insane West Side Story love and as such, lots of songs. The first one is about that stupid pencil loaning moment and takes up half of their history class. Stiles ends up with a bunch of sidekick exposition songs in the epic love story of Scott and Allison. He knows his own soulmate is out there somewhere since he has songs running through his head often enough, just nothing as over the top as an original song about pencils.</p><p>Derek always knew he wouldn’t get a big show-stopping musical number with his soulmate. After how much love has jerked him around in his short life, he would rather pretend he doesn't sometimes feel the compulsion to sing along to 80's power ballads he hasn't actively listened to since high school.</p><p>And then Derek goes home to Beacon Hills.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Tune Popped Into My Head

**Author's Note:**

> This mostly follows canon from seasons one and two, just with the added fun of soulmates being compelled by the universe to duet.
> 
> Unbeta'd, but I've been sitting on this for a while and I'm pretty sure there aren't any glaring errors, but if there are, they are entirely my own.

**We’re Going to Be Friends**

 

On the first day of Kindergarten Stiles is nervous. He doesn’t want his mom to leave him here and walk out that door. The room smells too much of play-doh and window cleaner, and one of the bright, tubey lights makes a buzzy, fuzzy sound that hurts his teeth. Stiles is positive that Kindergarten is a bad idea and he might as well go home now.

Sure, his mom promises over and over that it’s just for the morning and he’ll get to take the bus home like a big boy and then they can go get lunch at the diner. She promises him curly fries, too. He loves curly fries.

That stops his quivering lip and he rubs at his itchy eyes with his chubby fists. “Okay,” Stiles says, still a little unsure of the whole endeavor, but a little more willing to give it a chance.

“And after lunch we can stop by the station and see Dad, how’s that sound?” Stiles brightens then and nods before throwing his arms around his mother’s middle in a fierce hug. Claudia hugs back and ruffles his hair as she forces her son to let go. “Your first day of school will go by so fast, sweetie, you’ll see. Maybe you’ll even learn something.” She kisses him on the forehead and finally leaves, waving from the doorway before disappearing around the corner.

Stiles panics for a second before seeing another boy receiving a similar farewell from his own mother and taking it harder. The boy has tears in his eyes and his mother keeps looking over at the clock on the wall before checking her watch, as if one of them is wrong but she isn’t sure which. Clearly she needs to leave now, but her son is holding onto her tightly and she can’t bring herself to break his grip. Their teacher has noticed the scene and is making her way over, but before she can reach them Stiles runs to the kid’s side and says, “Hi, I’m Stiles.”

The boy freezes momentarily before offering a gentle, “Scott,” as he relaxes his hold on his mother.

She crouches down and says, “See, you’re making friends already,” and kisses his forehead. “Be good, I’ll see you later.” And then Scott and Stiles are left standing awkwardly across from one another when a melody pops into Stiles’s head. From the look on Scott’s face he hears it too. It isn’t a compulsion to sing though, not like with romantic soul mates. Instead it is simply a gentle melody for them to share, telling them how significant this moment is.

So Stiles takes Scott’s hand, now instant best friends the way only children can be.

 

**Duet for Solo Cello**

 

At first, Derek barely recognizes the sound of someone playing a cello in the music room. He’s joking with his friends on the basketball team so he ignores it, even if it is pretty. Then the music stops and a girl comes out to yell at them. Once the words are out of her mouth the sound of the cello returns, even though no one else is around to play it, and Derek feels a fluttering in his chest and in the pit of his stomach.

The next day, after hearing the same line of music over and over in his head for hours on end, Derek goes to the music room and he tries to be charming. He’s had plenty of girls flirt with him, and even if he was a jerk yesterday he’s surprised when she remains uninterested. But he keeps trying, finally winning her over the tiniest bit when she dares him to play any instrument in the room and he picks up that triangle. She introduces herself as Paige, and adds with a smirk, “That isn’t actually proper technique for the triangle.”

Derek just shrugs and smiles at her. Paige asks him to go so she can practice and he finally says, “Yeah, sure, I just had to know your name.” As he turns to leave, he starts humming the cello line from the day before because he still can’t get it out of his head. He’s almost made it out the door when she starts playing a sweet, smooth harmony to the melody Derek hums. He stops and pivots to face her. “So you hear it too.”

“I didn’t want to believe it was because of you,” she breathes.

Derek winces, but he still goes back to her, sitting in an adjacent chair. The melody recedes, job completed having brought them together, and his head feels oddly silent.

Paige sets her bow down on the ledge of her music stand and holds a free hand out to him. “Well, what happened to the cocky basketball star who interrupted me? No snarky remark about proving yourself?”

“I just don’t want to mess this up.”

“Then don’t.” She squeezes his hand and she smiles. The music returns and it swells.

                        *                                  *                                  *                                  *

He should never have listened to Peter. There was a reason he wasn’t supposed to be on school grounds anymore, and Derek should have known that the idea coming from Peter meant it was a bad one. He’d had something so good with Paige. They were happy, and he was almost ready to tell her about him, about his family and what they were. He had been sure that she wouldn’t care. Paige was his soulmate, how could she possibly care about something as simple as him being a werewolf? It didn’t change who he was, who they were together.

Then he let Peter talk him into… God, how was that even a decision for him to make? Not just because of how it turned out, he should have talked to her first. It should have been up to Paige.

He should never have listened to Peter.

But he did, and now he’s in a horrible little root cellar holding Paige as her body rejects the bite. He tries to soothe her, but he can barely keep himself from crying as their melody runs through his head. She starts to hum it, as if she knows, and he realizes that it must be in her head too. “I’m so sorry,” he says through tears. “This should never have happened.”

“I love you,” she says before coughing again, bringing up more of the black. It stains her lips as her breathing slows. The crack of her spine as he breaks it does little to muffle the exact moment her heart stops, and in that second the melody falls apart, becoming a jumble before settling into a distant hum.

It distracts him so much that he does not hear his mother’s approach and he startles at her touch.

Now when he shifts his eyes are blue.

 

**Keep Me in Your Heart**

 

If this call hadn’t come in Sheriff Stilinski would already be at the hospital. But it’s late, and not enough men are on duty tonight, so he goes to the car wreck and he waits with the poor girl, even though she tells him to go. He doesn’t listen, but as he crouches beside her, holding onto her hand and waiting for the emergency workers to get her out, part of him knows she’s right.

When the ambulance finally arrives he moves out of the way, takes the requisite notes to file his report. Pen scratching over the paper, he almost doesn’t notice the near imperceptible change of added white noise. It’s like he’s driven far enough that his radio stops picking up the station, but with less static. And in that moment his heart drops.

The Sheriff follows the ambulance to the hospital, already knowing what will be waiting for him when he arrives, but in no way prepared for any of it. His son sits in a chair beside the nurses’ station where Melissa McCall is watching him with sad eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she says.

He tries to speak, falters, clears his throat and asks, “When?”

“They called it a half hour ago.”

“Is she…”

“They haven’t moved her yet. Stiles wouldn’t let them.”

He nods, finally turning to his son and crouching beside him, arms held out. Stiles turns immediately into the hug. Instead of pulling back the Sheriff keeps his arms around Stiles, picking him up even though at nine the boy is almost too big to be carried. Together, they go to Claudia’s room to say goodbye.

Really, they had been saying goodbye for over a year, as her illness took more and more of her away from them. The blunt questions and thoughtless statements that cut deeper because it practically wasn’t his wife saying them. But there had been good days. She still sang and laughed and would tell them she loved them even when it seemed everything else that made her Claudia was gone.

But as the Sheriff looks at her still warm body, the hum reasserts itself in his mind. His music is gone, and after that day Stiles does not hear his father sing again.

 

**4’33”**

 

When Derek first sees Kate he just thinks she’s hot, smoking hot, too hot to be interested in him. Then she smiles at him and his heart pounds. She introduces herself, and something miraculous happens: The dull hum that he has lived with since losing Paige disappears. Kate brings him quiet and for that he is grateful.

But Kate is older, and when Laura finds out she tells him it’s a bad idea. “It isn’t okay. Mom will flip, and with good reason.”

Derek scowls and tries to argue. “You don’t understand. Nobody understands, and Kate makes me—”

“No, tell her to wait ‘til you’re eighteen and if she really cares about you she will. I don’t like the whole situation, Der. It hasn’t been that long since—”

“I told you, you don’t understand. Just drop it, Laura.” And that is how Derek Hale starts ignoring his family in order to sneak off to see Kate Argent.

He’s just getting back from an evening holed up in Kate’s apartment when Laura stops him on the front porch. “I’m sick of never seeing you anymore; we’re going for a run.” She elbows him, a playful grin on her face. “Come on, just you and me in the woods. It’ll be like when we were kids.”

“Okay,” Derek says, a grin of his own escaping before he can remember that he’s still mad at her for what she said about Kate. Without waiting for her to say anything more he takes off, racing down the trail leading behind their house and into the woods. The cool night air as he breezes through it invigorates Derek’s senses and he can hear Laura’s footfalls as she gains on him, soon catching up to him. They trace the edge of their property and run so far they end up following the back roads that lead out of town.

“We should head back soon,” Laura says as the first fingers of dawn peak over the horizon. But Derek is not tired; in fact, he hasn’t felt so awake and alive in months. So he keeps running, taunting Laura into chasing after him.

When the sun is about to rise into the pink morning sky they hear the sirens.

Only then does the distant smell of smoke hit Derek so strongly that he skids to a halt. Laura stops too, her eyes going wide as her pulse races. Together they bolt towards home, arriving after the fire engines, ambulances, and the sheriff’s department, the fire already under control, leaving their house a blackened husk. Underneath the acrid stench of the black smoke is the smell of cooking meat and Derek blanches, sinking to his knees. He heaves but does not throw up, having nothing in his stomach to expel.

Laura races towards the house, feeling the draw of pack pulling her to the steps, but a firefighter stops her and she snarls at him. That’s when the sheriff approaches and starts asking questions, and Laura calms enough to answer. A deputy finds Derek leaning against a tree and escorts him over, too. The questions continue:

“Do you live here?”

            “Yes.”

“What were you doing out so early in the morning?”

            “Running.”

“Do you have any idea what could have caused this?”

            “No.”

“There haven’t been any electrical problems recently? No chance someone left a gas burner unattended?"

            “No.”

                        “We don’t have any gas burners.”

“I think it would be best if you came down to the station to give your statements.”

Laura nods, putting a protective arm around Derek even though he is taller than she is now. He leans into her and she pushes his hair out of his face; her hand comes away dusty with ash. Looking over Laura’s shoulder Derek realizes why the sheriff is ushering them away now as he sees paramedics bringing out covered stretchers and he wants to run, and then he hears screaming.

Someone survived the fire.

Derek breaks from Laura’s grasp and he makes it almost to the steps before a different deputy stops him. Still, he sees the burned face of his Uncle Peter as he is carried from the house, his body contorted by spasms of pain. But the screaming has stopped again, and Derek watches as another body is taken from the house. He feels tears stinging his eyes and only then does he let the deputy lead him back to Laura and the Sheriff.

At the station, the Sheriff asks them dozens of questions, many to which they have no answers. It takes long enough that a deputy is sent out to bring them lunch. After the joint interrogation, the Sheriff leads Laura off on her own to ask her questions since she’s older, and technically Derek’s legal guardian now, leaving Derek to sit on the bench across from the Sheriff’s desk. He tries to hum Paige’s melody to himself but he can’t quite find the notes, like it has been pulled from his memory and frustrated, he stops. A minute later a boy with the longest, darkest eyelashes Derek has ever seen walks into the office, clearly oblivious to Derek’s presence. He is humming too, the melody different but still simple and low.

The humming stops and he notices Derek and gives him a calm once over, dark eyes appraising him to take in the ash that coats his body and his otherwise disheveled appearance. “You don’t look so good. What happened?”

“There was a fire,” Derek says, surprised by how easily the words leave his mouth.

“Oh,” the boy says, still staring. He narrows his eyes, like he’s trying to focus his thoughts, but he screws up his mouth in a frown and just adds, “Sounds dangerous.” He disappears behind the sheriff’s desk and suddenly Derek feels obligated to make sure the kid isn’t messing with anything he shouldn’t be.

Standing, he glances over the desk, but he just sees the boy sitting, facing the back wall, surrounded by stacks of X-Men comics. He’s also got one up near his face, reading as he slowly turns pages. Derek decides firmly that the kid is fine and therefore none of his business.

When Laura and the Sheriff return, they say that Derek doesn’t need to give a statement, that Laura has said enough and that they are free to go for now. “We’ll probably have to call you for follow up, but other than that I don’t have anything pressing. I am so sorry for your loss,” Sheriff Stilinski says. Laura puts her arm protectively around Derek again, and leads him out of the station. They buy new clothes and check into a motel for the night to get cleaned up. Derek tries to call Kate, but he keeps getting a message saying, “The number you have attempted to reach is out of service,” and even though he knows why he doesn’t want to let himself believe it. Laura spends the evening on the phone with the insurance company and doctors at the hospital in regards to Peter’s condition. Neither of them sleeps much that night.

A week later the insurance settlement has gone through and the fire has officially been labeled an accident. Derek and Laura leave for New York as soon as they have Peter set up for long term care, and they don’t look back.

On the plane ride, a tune pops into Derek’s head, the first strong, clear melody he’s heard since Paige. It flows without words, and he ignores it, not knowing what else to do.

 

**Baby It’s Cold Outside**

 

The Christmas after Stiles turns twelve is the first one he and his father can really bear to celebrate. His mom had always loved holidays, would go overboard decorating and planning, always managing to find the perfect gift for everyone. Not just for the big holidays either, but all the little ones too. Stiles grew up cheerfully waving sparklers and attempting to sing along with “ _La Marseillaise_ ” on Bastille Day, and their backyard was full of bushes and saplings planted for Arbor Day.

But Christmas was her favorite and the very idea of celebrating was more than either Stiles or the Sheriff could bear in those first years after Claudia’s death. Sure, Stiles still got gifts, but nothing he cared much about, and after that year he admitted he knew the truth about Santa Claus and could they please not pretend anymore? His dad just nodded, never actually getting rid of the tradition and still filling Stiles’s stocking with candy and gift cards, but no longer bothering to hide anything from his son.

Now it’s been nearly three years and Stiles asks if they can actually get a tree this year. They do, and Scott comes over to help decorate and they listen to Christmas music on the radio. Afterwards, when Scott has gone home and the radio has been turned off, the Sheriff hears singing from upstairs. He strains, thinking maybe Stiles is playing video games, but the sounds are too gentle and intermittent to be coming from the television. Then he hears, “I ought to say no, no, no, sir. At least I’m gonna say that I tried.” Relaxing, he returns his attention to the reports he has to fill out for tomorrow. While still off-putting, he’s heard Stiles singing half of a song by himself a few times over the past couple of years. He’s sure that some other kid is doing the same every time Stiles sings along with the radio.

Suddenly, his heart aches, missing the times when he could not help but sing because of Claudia, the way she would force him to do Sonny and Cher songs while they were dating just to prove she could. Now the thought of singing at all… He shakes his head to clear it and gets up from his place at the dining room table.

When he sits back down there’s a glass of scotch in his hand.

 

**Help**

 

Laura promises not to be gone long when she returns to Beacon Hills six years after they left. “I’ll be back before you can miss me, just a couple weeks and then I’ll be in your way again,” she says with a smile when he drops her at the airport.

“I just don’t like it, Laur, the whole situation seems off.”

“That’s part of why I have to go. And as your alpha I’m telling you to back off. I’ll be careful, I promise, but I need to go.” She puts a hand on his shoulder, eyes flashing red for a second. “Call me if anything comes up here, okay?”

“Okay.” He frowns, turning away from her. Then he mumbles so softly that she can barely hear it, “I’m gonna miss you.”

“Love you, too, Derek.” She hugs him then before heading off to the security line.

Laura calls him every night, just checking in, always saying she doesn’t want to talk about what she’s been discovering over the phone. One night Derek panics and says he’ll fly out immediately to meet her, but she brushes him off, saying, “I’ll be back in a few more days, don’t worry.” Then, one night she doesn’t call, nor does she answer when Derek calls her, leaving enough messages to fill her voicemail box. She remains silent the next night, and the one after that, but Derek is already driving across the country.

Halfway through Utah he is struck with the sudden need to sing a Beatles song, and he does because he can’t _not_ sing it. He scowls all the way through because he hates being reminded that he’s met another possible soulmate when he’s still hurting over Kate, still tormented by his memories of Paige, and completely not interested in having random songs in his head right now. The whole situation is fucked up and he wishes he lived in a world where the universe wasn’t constantly playing matchmaker in the most obnoxious way possible.

Then he’s hit with the compulsion to sing “Total Eclipse of the Heart” which happens far more often than he will ever admit, and he sighs.

-

Finally back in Beacon Hills, Derek goes to the burned out shell of his old house, and under the smell of rot and ash he finds her scent. Following it through the woods, doubling back over his path twice before he pulls up short, he finally finds the most recent trail, the one that ends in blood and decay.

When he finds her bifurcated he knows that hunters are around, but he calms the fear in his mind long enough to bury her the way an alpha deserves.

 

**Hungry Like the Wolf**

 

After Scott gets attacked in the woods the night the boys go looking for the dead body Stiles knows things are going to change. For one, their entire English class is drawn into an original musical number when Scott offers the new girl a pen on her first day.

For another, Scott tells Stiles he’s pretty sure it was a wolf the bit him. To which Stiles says, “Not possible. There are no wolves in California. There haven’t been for, like, fifty years.”

“How do you know for sure?” Scott counters, “I mean, don’t wolf packs travel sometimes?”

“I know because I looked it up,” Stiles answers. “Remember how I used to wake up all the time because I was hearing howling? Well, I had to make sure it wasn’t actual wolves. And it wasn’t, because there are no wolves in California. I just had weirdly realistic dreams or something,” he finishes with a shrug.

“But I swear it sounded like a wolf,” Scott protests, going on to describe all the weird stuff that has been happening to him since the attack.

Then Stiles finds himself singing a song about Lycanthropy to Scott as it dawns on him exactly what happened that night.

When they go to investigate further and get yelled at by a guy in a leather jacket about how they’re on private property, Stiles freaks. A memory from years ago flashes in his head even as he recognizes Mr. Intensity and realizes where they are. “Dude, that’s Derek Hale,” Stiles whispers, flailing as silently as he can as they walk away. Scott just stares at him completely at a loss. “Don’t you remember, like, his entire family died in a fire six years ago. It was all over the news.” Stiles fails to mention his up close and personal encounter with this particular incident or how much sleep his father lost over it. He always assumed that he would never see Derek Hale again, but here he is. Or was… looking back over his shoulder there’s no sign of broody, grown-up Derek.

Soon enough they’re seeing Derek everywhere. He lurks around the school, crashes the party where Scott almost wolfs out on Allison, and he saves Scott from crazy werewolf hunters. “And he’s a werewolf, too, Stiles. I think he’s the one who bit me?”

“Maybe… Have you tried asking him?”

“He usually doesn’t hang around long enough to ask anything,” Scott says with a shrug.

“You make a good point, I guess… He doesn’t seem super forthcoming either. Plus, he’s just super sketchy, hanging around the woods and following teenagers.”

They agree that they don’t trust Derek Hale, and then they find the other half of the girl’s body buried outside the Hale house and Stiles tells his father. But the Sheriff has no evidence and can only hold Derek for a night before having to release him. “But he killed his sister!” Stiles yells when he finds out.

“Last I checked Derek Hale wasn’t a wild animal, and the body was covered in claw marks,” the Sheriff retorts. “I was there after the fire. He was a broken young man coping with a horrible loss, and from what I could see, he was very close to his sister. Don’t pester him, Stiles, this isn’t your business.”

But the universe has other plans, and before long Stiles finds himself stuck with Derek completely dependent upon him.

 

**Toxic**

 

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look like shit,” Stiles says as Derek climbs into the passenger seat of his jeep. Derek scowls before rolling his eyes. “What? If I’m going to help save your ass I’m going to have to talk. And you seriously look like you’re dying.” He sniffs then, hit full on by the odor for the first time, adding, “And you’re starting to smell like death warmed over.”

“Just get me out of here,” Derek snaps.

Stiles holds up his hands for a second in a gesture of placation before shrugging. “I’m going to take the opportunity now to remind you that if you kill me I can’t schlep you around.”

The whole situation remains horribly bizarre as Stiles waits with Derek, first in his jeep and then at the vet clinic, for Scott to get back with whatever special hunter bullet Derek’s been shot with. Bracing himself against the exam table Derek looks at the bullet wound and he can feel the poison moving through his body. “Stiles, if Scott doesn’t get here in time, I’m going to need you to cut my arm off,” he grinds out, barely able to stay upright.

“No. Nope, can’t do it.” Stiles drags a hand over his face, now much too focused on the black veins running along Derek’s arm. “I’d, I-I would pass out, or vomit, or vomit then pass out… maybe pass out then vomit. Dude, I am not going to cut off your arm.” He starts pacing, glancing at Derek every few seconds.

“You’re fine with werewolves and your best friend nearly killing you, but this is the step too far?”

“I’m a squeamish when it comes to dismemberment, sue me.” He holds eye contact with Derek, who just raises an eyebrow, and Stiles pulls out his phone to try calling Scott again. “Come on, Scott, pick up. I need you to pick up,” he mumbles, leg shaking, until it devolves into him humming nervously, which minutely echoes in Derek’s head.

“Oh fuck,” Derek whispers as he realizes he hears the humming twice over. This nerdy, teenage punk is the one who has been forcing him to sing along to Disney movies and 80’s power ballads for the past six years. The room spins and Derek collapses against the table.

Stiles panics, yelling, “I am not cutting off your arm! I can’t do it, Derek,” even as he rushes to his side.

“Not yet,” Derek says, jerking away. He has already decided there is no way he can let Stiles know, that if he survives singing is out of the question until he can convince Stiles that he isn’t worth the trouble. Fortunately, Stiles doesn’t push for more as Derek becomes increasingly less capable of retaining consciousness and coherency. He barely can do more than register when Scott arrives with the bullet. Still, he manages to burn the aconite and press it into the wound in order to counteract the poison.

He still feels like shit, but his body has already healed as he slumps over the metal exam table. “What are we going to do with him?” Scott asks in a gentle whisper.

“I don’t care. I’ve been babysitting and freaking out all night, so I just do not care.”

“We can’t just leave him here, Stiles.”

“Well, what do you want to do? Bring him to your house and leave him on the couch? Because your mom would love that. Maybe sneak him into my bedroom? So my father, the sheriff who recently arrested him, can walk in on that mess? Please, Scott, tell me what you think.”

With a groan, Derek pushes himself up and says, “I’m fine. Don’t worry, about it. Go home. I’ll be around.”

“You sure about that?” Scott asks, his face so open that Derek feels awful again that this kid got dragged into this whole business by whatever alpha bit him.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” He waves them off as he staggers out the door.

From behind he hears Stiles mutter, “Not even a thank you for saving his life,” followed by the soft impact of Scott punching him in the arm. Derek shakes his head. Stiles is better off without Derek, even if they both need Scott. Shaking his head to clear it, Derek resolves to keep both boys at arm’s length until he can find his sister’s killer, and after that he’ll get the fuck out of dodge.

That’s the only way he can keep Stiles safe and keep his own heart from breaking again.

 

**Renegade**

 

“So you’re hiding out in my room now?” Stiles says after nearly screaming when he notices Derek skulking in the corner of his bedroom.

“You made me a fugitive, so yeah, here works for me,” Derek says with a shrug. Stiles argues, unable to control the sass-impulse that courses through his veins, and Derek slams him up against the door.

 _I should be freaked out right now_ , Stiles thinks, and part of him is afraid of Derek still. But mostly he feels that this close proximity with Derek Hale, murder suspect, is normal and to be expected. Part of him wants to invade Derek’s space right back.

He doesn’t, instead calling Danny and conning him into tracing the text Allison received the night they were trapped in the school. When Danny calls attention to the blood on Derek’s shirt, Stiles takes full advantage of the opportunity to ogle the muscles of Derek’s back and abdomen. Dude is ripped and it makes Stiles want to invade his space again.

Then Danny shows them where the text came from and Stiles’s mind goes blank.

**-**

“Fuck, what was that for?” Stiles shouts, hand over his nose after getting his head slammed toward his steering wheel.

“You know what that was for,” Derek says without skipping a beat. “Maybe the next time someone ends up dead you and Scott could try not blaming it on me. Now go.”

Stiles holds up his hands in surrender before hopping out of his jeep, and striding into the hospital with as much purpose as he can muster. He goes directly to Melissa McCall’s desk, hoping to quickly prove that his best friend’s mother is not actually involved in any of this. But she isn’t there. Pulling out his phone he calls Derek. “She’s not here, now what?”

“Find Jennifer, she’s my uncle’s nurse. She’ll probably help you,” comes Derek’s exasperated reply.

Stiles slips through the hallways towards Peter Hale’s room, sneaking past one of the night nurses. Opening the door as quietly as possible he peers inside. “She’s not here,” Stiles whispers into his phone, then he adds, “Neither is Peter…”

Panic colors Derek’s response. “Stiles, get out of there, it’s him, he’s the alpha.”

“Oh no, I’m gonna die,” Stiles sing-songs, the sound again reverberating in Derek’s head. Moving back towards the entrance Stiles stops in his tracks when he sees Derek already coming to meet him. “Derek, are you sure it’s—”

“Get down,” Derek barks. As Stiles drops he turns to see a fully-functioning Peter walking towards them. His pulse races, but he calms as Derek steps between him and Peter. He swears he can hear a melody running through his brain.

Derek fights Peter, and it takes them both out of the hospital. Stiles does the only sensible thing he can think of and runs to tell Scott.

 

**Don’t Stand So Close to Me**

 

Derek makes a lot of bad decisions after discovering Peter is the alpha, namely trusting Peter for even the tiniest amount of time. But the one thing he sticks with is keeping away from Stiles. Not that he has to try very hard while Kate is holding him captive in the tunnels. Or when Peter knocks him out for the big final showdown after killing Kate. And really, he’s grateful to be unconscious for the majority of the end-of-act-one-declaration-of-love song Scott and Allison share. Derek doesn’t even notice Stiles is there when he kills Peter and takes the alpha power for himself.

And he knows that screwing over Scott like this will push both him and Stiles away, but Derek also knows he’ll need a pack of his own. He finds someone who wants the bite. Someone he can’t really stand, but who he knows will help keep Scott and Stiles away. Too many of his decisions now revolve around keeping both teens at arm’s length.

He bites Jackson and it feels oddly right.

 

**Our Song**

 

For six years Stiles has been telling himself that the music in his head started because of Lydia Martin and that day in fourth grade when she finally acknowledged his existence. Even when she was duetting with Jackson Whittemore all through eighth grade and she had once again returned to pretending that Stiles did not exist.

He knows it isn’t true. The voice in his head has never sounded remotely like Lydia. It’s lower and richer, and quite honestly clearly male from the first day—older than Stiles, certainly, a voice that has fully changed already. A voice he would recognize anywhere until the day he actually hears it outside of his head and he refuses to believe it. It can’t be Derek Hale; they hate each other. And yet somehow the universe keeps throwing them into situations where they need to get along. Even when Derek is being intimidating, he is very gentle. He pushes Stiles around but never hard enough to bruise, never holds so tight Stiles feels he could not pull away if he wanted.

He can tell when Derek is keeping his distance, the fact that he hasn’t heard any music in his head since Derek came back to Beacon Hills, that he only talks to Stiles to warn him off of being around the supernatural or when he really needs his help. The giant lizard creature terrorizing the city has put a bit of a damper on the whole “stay away for your own good” business.

Which is how they end up together in the high school swimming pool. Most of their time is spent in awkward silence as Stiles treads water in order to keep them both from drowning. Every so often Derek growls something and Stiles snarks back until it all comes to a head as Stiles energy begins to wane. “I can’t do this much longer Derek,” he says, gasping as he works to keep his mouth out of the water.

“Don’t even think about it, Stiles. Once the paralysis wears off, who do you think will be able to fight that thing?”

“So that’s the only reason I’ve been KEEPING YOU ALIVE for the past two hours?”

“You don’t trust me, I don’t trust you, but you need me which is why you’re not. Letting. Me. Go.” Derek’s eyes never leave Stiles’s face, even as he hears the music begin to swell inside his head.

Stiles hears it too, can already feel lyrics ready to spill from his lips when he glances at his dropped phone again and makes his decision. Releasing Derek, he swims for the edge of the pool and grabs the phone, backing just outside the lizard-monster’s reach before it can get him. Calling Scott he waits, the seconds dragging by as it rings, only for his best friend to immediately hang up on him. “Fuck,” he huffs out, dropping the phone again and writing everything in his life off as a lost cause before diving down and bringing Derek back to the surface.

Sputtering, Derek wheezes, “Please say you reached him.”

“Sorta,” Stiles mutters, and once again there’s music, but it isn’t demanding he sing this time, it’s just the soft melody that he has heard off and on for years. “How long were you thinking you could keep it from me?” he asks, eyes tracking the lizard-thing rather than looking at Derek.

Derek doesn’t even attempt to play dumb. “Until I knew you would steer clear of me even when you found out. I’m not going to be good for you Stiles, and I don’t want you getting hurt because of me.”

“Chances are I’m going to drown because of you.”

“Scott will come.”

“You sound pretty damn sure of yourself. I thought you didn’t trust anyone.”

“I trust that Scott will come for you.” Derek takes a moment to catch his breath. “If you have to drop me, do it. Scott will be able to get you out of here.”

Stiles scoffs, which somehow pushes water up his nose, the sting forcing him to sneeze. Directly in Derek’s face. He feels bad about it, because gross, but refuses to apologize because Derek is being an ass. “First of all, I’ve been holding you up too long for either of us to die now. Second, you do realize that I know you’re more than the grumpy face and the silent intimidation and the appearing creepily at the edge of the lacrosse field? Exhibit A: you seem pretty fixated on my safety even if you pretend it’s mutually beneficial. Exhibit B: you watch _White Christmas_ every December 23 rd and sing along to all of the songs. I get those songs stuck in my head all the time and I’ve never even seen the damn movie. You never sing anything that came out after you finished high school, not that you sing along with the radio much.” Stiles’s mouth begins to drop below the surface and he kicks to push them both up, coughing as he breathes in a bit too hastily.

He opens his mouth to say more when Derek softly asks, “You’ve never seen _White Christmas_? Seriously?”

“My mom liked _It’s a Wonderful Life_ more. Now, Scott and I usually watch _A Muppet Christmas Carol_ since it’s the best version.”

Derek smiles; he already knew about that since Scott and Stiles usually sing along too. “You listen to too much punk rock and 80s power ballads,” he says, his tone almost fond. Then he notices Stiles’s face dipping dangerously low and tries to will his muscles back to usefulness.

“Hopefully, we’ll have the chance to discuss this in more depth later, but I can’t keep this up much longer. I need something to hold onto,” Stiles says. He huffs as he drags Derek’s body with him, kicking frantically toward the diving board at the nearest edge of the pool. His waterlogged, clumsy hands try to grab at anything, but his grip slips and he feels himself go under.

Head pounding, Stiles is about to open his mouth and let water rush in when a hand grabs the back of his shirt and pulls him out of the pool.

-

Afterwards, in the parking lot, the creature—Kanima as Derek informs them—gone, Scott explodes. “You can’t keep secrets all the time Derek. We don’t have to like each other, but we have to work together because people are getting killed by this thing.”

Instead of arguing or being mysterious and cryptic, Derek just looks directly at Stiles before saying, “I know.”

“I’m sick of—wait, what?” Scott sputters, not entirely sure he heard right.

“I trust you, Scott. I may not agree with you all the time, but I trust you. And I need you to trust me.” This leaves Derek with three confused teenagers staring at him, Erica the most confused and oddly possessive of all, but he quiets her with a look.

Scott gives a sharp nod. “Alright. We’ll make this work.” He turns to leave, figuring Stiles will follow him, but he makes it several paces before realizing he is alone. “You coming?” he asks as he turns back.

“I’ll catch up with you later,” Stiles says, waving him off. And after a minute of intense silent conversation of facial expressions, Scott finally leaves. Derek, likewise, sends Erica home, so he and Stiles are left standing alone in the parking lot.

“So this is something,” Stiles says. “Definitely something, and you need to let me make my own decisions about you. No more trying to scare me away.”

“I can’t promise anything,” Derek says with half a smile on his face. “But I’ll try. I owe you that much.”

“Aww, I’m touched,” Stiles says, holding a mocking hand to his chest.

Derek’s smile becomes a scowl. “You know this isn’t going to end well. And Scott’s going to be pissed at both of us when he finds out.”

“He’ll get over it. Because you may be a sourwolf, but apparently you’re my sourwolf.” He claps Derek on the shoulder, hand slapping against the still soaked fabric of his henley. “Maybe next time we could get food like normal people instead of being trapped by a murder-lizard. Shitty first date, but it makes a great story, huh?” Stiles smirks as he walks towards his jeep, knowing he’ll have to call Scott when he gets home to explain things.

Derek just stares after him. “This was a life or death situation, not a date,” he huffs. How he is ever going to survive this kid is beyond him, but then he doesn’t really care. From here on out he’ll be playing by ear instead of trying to force the chords. Their song runs through his head as he hears Stiles sing-songing along to the melody, “ _It was totally a date_.”

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I love to hear feedback. This is my first time posting in the Teen Wolf fandom, but I have more where this came from, so interest is always appreciated.
> 
> Feel free to find me on tumblr at prickingofmythumbs.tumblr.com. I don't currently post writing there, but maybe I will if inspiration strikes.


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